The Rightwing Radicals of the Republican Party passed right-to-work in Michigan, home of the UAW and the first successful sitdown strike in Flint in our nation’s history. When that governor threatened to send in troops, John L. Lewis said I will bare my chest so that I will be the first you kill.

Several states are trying to opt out of Obamacare to the detriment of their own people at the cost of sick and dying kids and babies.

Radical Rightwing Republicans in the Senate led by an increasingly erratic John McCain are determined to deny a brilliant, still young African-American woman the appointment to Secretary of State.

President Barack Obama cannot do this by himself. We learned the hard way over the last four years that we have to stay on the battlefield. Some of us are called to that ceaseless battle for freedom and justice. Throughout human history folks like you and me been called to that battlefield – some for a time. Some of us for a lifetime.

In these holiest of times, it might be good to think about your own calling. I tried leaving. Couldn’t.

600,000 Americans gave their lives in one of the world’s most bitter struggles over slavery. Abraham Lincoln, as great as he became as President, couldn’t win that fight by himself.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony couldn’t win the the right to vote for women by themselves.

A. Philip Randolph and Dr. King couldn’t win the right to vote and desegregation by themselves. It took lots of people you never heard of with fear in their hearts and steel in their souls to win those fights. People like Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters shop steward E. D. Nixon who talked a 26 year old brand new preacher into leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott and my friend Rev. James Orange who lead the school strike in Birmingham when they turned the fire hoses and dogs on teenagers who refused to be passive victims of evil and fear.

As Rev. Orange would say before he passed,”What you gonna do?”.

I’m stayin’ on the battlefield and I’m countin’ on seeing you there too.

That’s why we’re selling these books at half price Getting America Back to Work and Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life in Organizing so you can learn. Learn to be a better organizer, learn why our economic mess is so hard to overcome.

Both books for $15 plus shipping and handling. Use them as holiday gifts.

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About Stewart

Stewart Acuff is the Organizing Director of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees 1199 in Philadelphia. Acuff has also written two books: Playing Bigger Than You Are and Getting America Back to Work, coauthored by Dr. Richard Levins.